I was wondering how authors use these words.
Personally, I use burned as the past tense and pp of the verb to burn. Whereas I use burnt as an adjective.
For example:
"Oh no! You've burned my toast!"
but
I didn't enjoy my breakfast, because my toast was burnt.
Does anyone make this distinction or do you use burned/burnt interchangeably as a verb?
Danny xx
I'm the same as you, Danny.
However, Google says that burned and burnt both work as the past tense and past participle of burn. Both are used throughout the English-speaking world, but usage conventions vary. American and Canadian writers use burned more often, and they use burnt mainly in adjectival phrases, such as burnt out and burnt orange. Outside North America, the two forms are used interchangeably, and neither is significantly more common than the other.
Burned is the older form. Burnt came about during a period in the 16th through 18th centuries in which there was a trend toward replacing -ed endings with -t in words where -ed was no longer pronounced as a separate syllable. Later, British writers continued to favor the newer -t forms for a handful of verbs, while North Americans went back to the more traditional -ed forms.
Seems like you and I have some explaining to do when next we meet with Her Majesty.
My latest story is a racy little piece about what happens when someone cute from work invites you over to watch Netflix and Chill. I use both pretty much how u do.
†Jinxy Approved†
Burned is a verb. Burnt is an adjective.
I burned these cupcakes.
These cupcakes are burnt.
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